Finlandia Vodka®, known for its pristine vodka and innovative package design, opens a new chapter with the introduction of a new bottle, dubbed ‘melting ice’…

Webb Blevins, global design director for Brown-Forman led the design vision for Finlandia and joined with Hirst Pacific Ltd to redesign the structural packaging of Finlandia Vodka.

Their advertising (by Bruton Stroub Studios) for the simulated “melting ice” bottle somehow positions itself as a manifesto on honesty and a critique on “gratuitous ad campaigns.”

2. The Bofrost Brand juice bottle by Design for Business is a PET bottle designed to resemble a large block of ice.

A Google translation from their website:

…the unique selling proposition for the frozen food service.

… Form Designer Rolland Altfater took up… the form of a block of ice as a model for the design of the new bottle shape. Scribbles of an asymmetric shape, and computer animations yielded no really satisfactory result. Only the realization of a basic form in clay brought to light the necessary suppleness and aesthetic form.

… The shape of the bottle has been realized in polyethylene terephthalate (PET). Whether frozen or thawed, the bottle is clear and the “ice” as a form said immediately: Bofrost — frozen directly into the house.

Turning now to another kind of “ice” bottle with fewer implications of class warfare…

Unlike yesterday’s bottles resembling precious gems, today we have real ice cubes which are not a metaphor for diamonds. Just regular “envy-free” ice cubes that come in an egalitarian plastic bottle.

The earlier of the two patents is Rikio Matsumoto’s “Combined Bottle and Ice Tray” on the right from 1972. The patent drawing on the left is from Philip A. Weeks 1992 patent for a “Combination Water/Ice Cube Bottle.”

Of the two, Matsumoto’s is the only one that I could confirm has actually been manufactured.

A lot of bottles for luxury goods are designed to look like cut gemstones. Seeing such an opulent assortment, I can’t help but imagine that every once in a while, maybe 1% of the time, a homeless person collecting bottles and cans will open up this treasure chest of a recycling bin full of bottles like these.

Of the products that are most often contained in a jeweled bottle, there seem to be three main categories. Liquor and perfume are no surprise as cut glass decanters and perfume bottles have been around since the dawn of the aristocracy.

The water bottles, on the other hand, are little surprising. Partly it’s the association of “ice” with gemstones. So it is that Isklar glacial mineral water gets a crystalline, jewel-like bottle.

With his “Diamond” bottle for the imaginary Aqua Carpatica water brand, Cristiano Giuggioli seeks to highlight the “preciousness” of water:

“…the purest water, chooses to undress every plethora and to dress up light. The light exalts the preciousness of water, for this reason Diamond is the perfect bottle for the perfect water.”

Beneath the metaphor, however, is the darker implication that water is becoming a luxury product that you would willingly pay a king’s ransom to keep drinking.

I recently swiped this from my Mom: a 1963 Popeil Brothers “Food Glamorizer.” I don’t think she was using it to glamorize food much, seeing as it was still its original box with instructions and all.

I can see why she saved it. Printed red, black and metallic gold, the small carton features some well-tooled 1960s graphic design styling, including a pattern of “glamorized” fruits and vegetables, a diagrammatic illustration of the product, and an atomic “PBI” logo.

“Food Glamorizer” is such a great name, describing not only its use in the creation of decorative foods, but also its own transformation from what is essentially a potato peeler into something glamorous.

Invented by Samuel J. Popeil who’s son (Ron Popeil) went on to found Ronco the following year. Samuel’s company was Popeil Brothers, Inc. or “PBI.” Compared to the package design of Ronco products that would later be sold on television, the Food Glamorizer’s box is a model of tasteful sixties restraint.

A lot of Ron’s Ronco devices were actually invented by S.J., the dad, but the product design and packaging of earlier Popeil Brothers products, like the Food Glamorizer, reflect a different graphic sensibility than the later, telemarketed Ronco products.

(Transparent food glamorizer on right)

S. J.’s gadgets were hardly high tech, but they earned attention for their sleek designs. Timothy Samuelson, the former curator of architecture and design at the Chicago Historical Society and now the cultural historian for the city of Chicago, is the owner of one of the largest collections of Popeil products from the era. Samuelson published a book in 2002 to celebrate the Popeil design aesthetic and declared the items from the O-Matic line as “some of the classic contemporary designs of the times.”

There were later versions of the Food Glamorizer sold under various trademarks (“Kitchen Magician,” “Salad Queen”) but these packages still used essentially the same graphics. Who designed these boxes?

When we speak of “petaloid bottles” it’s usually the base that we’re talking about— that radial structure on the bottom of PET soda bottles that makes them strong enough to withstand their internal pressures and gives them “feet” to stand on.

But the Marc Jacobs “Petite Flower on the Go” bottle is petaloid in an entirely different way: a daisy-shaped figural bottle. (A travel size version of the larger “Daisy” perfume bottle with plastic daisies on the cap)

I’ve read that the plastic petals can be snapped off to make the “Petite Flower” even more petite. It would be nice if they could snap off individually —(“she-loves-me-she-loves-me-not” style)— but looks to me like four of the flower petals come off all in one piece.

(The flower-shaped bottles come in a box, after the fold…) [Read more…]